The economic impact of paying some charities over 30 million..

hotbabe1992

I was reading in the times today that some charities get paid over 30 million i had to look again when i saw that figure:eek:,i didnt honestly think that the government had that sort of money to be throwing around.

Im just wondering what do YOU think is the economic impact of paying some charities over 30 million.

Just to go into my story for a bit..I used to work in rehab care,and they hired only two careworkers the rest were fas staff,about 10 of the fas staff,the place was very top heavy(lots of management types buzzing around(and very few paid workers,only 3 if i recall correctly)..

Lets put it this way there should have been more workers than managers on their phones..

There were people who were untrained in fas to deal with people who had autism and would often have outbursts.
I remember a girl who worked with them under fas,who said at lunchbreak she couldnt do it anymore etc.

There were some intellectually disabled people that would soil themselves and nothing would be done about it,until i raised the issue to another care worker who was just basically sitting there.

I went to management with a problem and they physically closed the door on me.This was not just a one - off occurance either.This was often the level of helpfulness i would and other rehab and fas staff would be getting.


I am just wondering if this type of thing goes on in other charities,obviously i complained to the rehab care manager but nothing was done,i had to go above her,and i went to the fas manager(not the supervisor),and regional manager of rehab,as did other people(both rehab workers and fas workers) as they were getting p*ssed off with the way things were happening.

Ive taken up work elsewhere since all these happenings,i dont know if they know that i complained them but i dont care at this point.

There was zero respect there for workers,and it was an inefficient centre,so far since then i have heard it is still open still operating even since the barrage of complaints.

I have emailed primetime about this issue but nothing was done,i even doubt it was read.I will be emailing them again though.


My question is if we are throwing money at organisations like these,and not asking where does the money go,and a break down of where all the money is allocated and how the charities are run.

Well then the government only have themselves to blame,i notice not just rehab but a lot of charities(one girl worked for a charity before rehab and said the exact same thing went on there) eventhough they get huge amounts of money,cut corners where they can(ie hire free fas staff),and so on..

If government officials just took a visit unannounced and seen the way some of these places are run,i bet they would soon take their money elsewhere..Or at least demand their money work for them,by way of getting a breakdown of where the money goes.


If charities are getting away with top ups,really the government should be asking what else are they getting away with?

What else are they not noticing.

johnnyskeleton

I'm not sure they really care. They want to be able to say "we spent x millions on worthy causes" and then forget about it. Policing the charity money spent would only cost more money and then people would say "why are you spending y on investigations when that could go directly to the charities".

You could always raise your specific concerns with how the money is spent with the comptroller and auditor general, but to be honest unless there is actual misappropriation of funds in not sure that they will care.

hotbabe1992

Policing the charity money spent would only cost more money and then people would say "why are you spending y on investigations when that could go directly to the charities".

Okay i got a solution to that,why not take a portion of the money that they are going to be given,to the policing of it..

That way they are not spending extra money..And now is the time to do it in the light of all these unauthorised top ups..

Icepick

Charities are much more efficient at social services than the public sector.

hmmm

We're a tiny country with a million charities. The overheads must be enormous.

antoobrien

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Im just wondering what do YOU think is the economic impact of paying some charities over 30 million.

Some of the charities are far better at providing services than the public suppliers, due to the more targeted goals of the charities e.g. hospices. It's a tricky area but I'd rather see certain charities like Croi (which works with and supports the GUH cardiology unit), Western Alzheimers or Galway Hospice getting donations than giving extra money to the Galway University Hospitals group as they help to reduce the pressure on the hospitals, while providing valuable community services.

macraignil

I was working a number of years back for a registerd charity in caring for a young adult with Autism. The Brother of Charity Southern Services hired me on the basis that having worked a six month trial period there would be a permanent care worker job available. Having worked just under the six month trial period I was told I needed to take four weeks unpaid leave because of cutbacks in funding. After the four weeks passed I returned to be told by the charity management that they would only offer me a contract offering no regular hours of work but the posability to fill in for other care workers holidays when that might be available.
Charitys are given money by the government to fund work that is not covered by our health services. As a charity the management can chose to channel government money as they like with their own wages the only priority for them as far as I can see. It is then left to individual cases of neglect to chalange the image of the charity that in turn can simply blame restricted funding for not providing a usefull service. By funding charitys to do vital social and care work like this we are passing health problems down to future generations without being treated today. The long term economic impact will be an even more expensive health care system in future.

Godge

Icepick wrote: »

Charities are much more efficient at social services than the public sector.

Says what piece of objective information?

diana123

The Financial Crisis of 2008 affected the Irish economy severely, compounding domestic economic problems related to the collapse of the Irish property bubble. After 24 years of continuous growth at an annual level during 1984–2007,[16] Ireland first experienced a short technical recession from Q2-Q3 2007, followed by a long 2-year recession from Q1 2008 – Q4 2009.The country is also suffering from budget deficit so we should think before commuting donations to charities or leave it to the Celebrities.

[MOD]Wikipedia cut and paste without acknowledgement. Second offence, yellow card.[/MOD]

chopper6

Icepick wrote: »

Charities are much more efficient at social services than the public sector.

Sure they are....even when they'e creaming off most of the donations to pay thier staff.

Maybe if you ever get sick you can go to a charity for treatment?

Icepick

Godge wrote: »

Says what piece of objective information?

For example, Concern spends 0.5% of its budget on governance.
How much is it in the Department of Social Protection?

sarumite

chopper6 wrote: »

Sure they are....even when they'e creaming off most of the donations to pay thier staff.

Maybe if you ever get sick you can go to a charity for treatment?

Not sure if healthcare is the best example. The HSE isn't exactly a shining light in terms of health care management.

Vizzy

You are right of course,sarumite.

Here's an idea,lets get St Vincent de Paul to run all our hospitals and Sue Ryder could look after the country's housing need.

sarumite

Vizzy wrote: »

You are right of course,sarumite.

Here's an idea,lets get St Vincent de Paul to run all our hospitals and Sue Ryder could look after the country's housing need.

There is no reason a professionally run, properly funded charity couldn''t run a hospital. Considering we have privately run hospitals, it clearly demonstrates that government involvement isn't essential.

Vizzy

Certainly possible for a charity to run a hospital or maybe a housing association but the health service/housing system for the country ?

ezra_pound

Icepick wrote: »

Charities are much more efficient at social services than the public sector.

I hear dept social protection are outsourcing children's allowance and state pension payments to focus Ireland and age action Ireland for this very reason. Of course you're right and the government recognise this and are letting charities cone in on service delivery.

sarumite

Vizzy wrote: »

Certainly possible for a charity to run a hospital or maybe a housing association but the health service/housing system for the country ?

Choppers original point was that the next time you get sick, go to a charity. The point I was making was that its not such a crazy idea (as you have acknowledged) and that the HSE isn't the best example of government providing an efficient and effective service.

Godge

Icepick wrote: »

For example, Concern spends 0.5% of its budget on governance.
How much is it in the Department of Social Protection?

That is more than a bit disingenuous.

https://www.concern.net/about/annual-reports

Concern spend is broken down as follows:

89.8%: Relief and Development

The rest is spent on paying fund-raisers (staff), development education and advocacy (publicity and lobbying) and governance (?). Over 10% spent on things other than relief is a lot different to 0.5%.

This doesn't even tell the full story as if you look further into the accounts you find the following note:

"Support costs, which cannot be attributed directly to one activity, are allocated to activities in proportion to estimated benefits received."

So a proportion of support costs (IT, HR, communications etc) are charged to the 89.8% spent on relief and development reducing it further.


Your governance costs are set out as follows:

"Governance costs represent the salaries, direct expenditure and overhead costs incurred on the strategic as opposed to day to day management of the charity, and on compliance with constitutional and statutory requirements."

This confirms my point that the costs of HR, IT, financial management, non-pay and other costs all come out of the 89.8%. If you look at note 6 to the accounts you will find that €6.7m of support costs are charged to the 89.8%.

One person is paid between €120,000 - €130,000 and another is paid between €90,000 - €100,000.

Finally, the most interesting point from the accounts is that Concern paid out just €29.5m in grants (see Appendix 3) out of a total income of €160m, only 18% with the rest of the 72% spent on Concern activities.

Icepick

Godge wrote: »

That is more than a bit disingenuous.

https://www.concern.net/about/annual-reports

Concern spend is broken down as follows:

89.8%: Relief and Development

The rest is spent on paying fund-raisers (staff), development education and advocacy (publicity and lobbying) and governance (?). Over 10% spent on things other than relief is a lot different to 0.5%.

This doesn't even tell the full story as if you look further into the accounts you find the following note:

"Support costs, which cannot be attributed directly to one activity, are allocated to activities in proportion to estimated benefits received."

So a proportion of support costs (IT, HR, communications etc) are charged to the 89.8% spent on relief and development reducing it further.


Your governance costs are set out as follows:

"Governance costs represent the salaries, direct expenditure and overhead costs incurred on the strategic as opposed to day to day management of the charity, and on compliance with constitutional and statutory requirements."

This confirms my point that the costs of HR, IT, financial management, non-pay and other costs all come out of the 89.8%. If you look at note 6 to the accounts you will find that €6.7m of support costs are charged to the 89.8%.

One person is paid between €120,000 - €130,000 and another is paid between €90,000 - €100,000.

Finally, the most interesting point from the accounts is that Concern paid out just €29.5m in grants (see Appendix 3) out of a total income of €160m, only 18% with the rest of the 72% spent on Concern activities.

The Department of Social Protection doesn't raise taxes so fundraising activities shouldn't be included.
0.5% is spent on governance. That actual relief might accrue additional costs.
So can you answer the question?

Godge

Icepick wrote: »

The Department of Social Protection doesn't raise taxes so fundraising activities shouldn't be included.
0.5% is spent on governance. That actual relief might accrue additional costs.
So can you answer the question?

You obviously didn't understand my post or didn't read the accounts.

The 0.5% for governance if translated into the Department of Social Protection would be about 0.001% because the governance is done by other Departments.

In the case of Concern, the money that they say is going to relief also includes support costs such as IT, HR, communications etc. I clearly told you which parts of the annual report to look at.

I don't have the figures for admin in the Department of Social Protection but if I did I would bet that as a % of activity they are far far lower than Concern's.

sarumite

Godge wrote: »

I don't have the figures for admin in the Department of Social Protection but if I did I would bet that as a % of activity they are far far lower than Concern's.

so you don't have the figures for either the DoSP or for Concern, but you would bet one is 'far far lower'.

Ballsy

Godge

sarumite wrote: »

so you don't have the figures for either the DoSP or for Concern, but you would bet one is 'far far lower'.

Ballsy

Look at the post that started this off.

Icepick wrote: »

Charities are much more efficient at social services than the public sector.

I queried this saying show me and was met with this (without a link)

Icepick wrote: »

For example, Concern spends 0.5% of its budget on governance.
How much is it in the Department of Social Protection?

I then went to verify the 0.5% figure and found that it was a pile of rubbish, see my earlier post, the support costs are €8m alone which is 5% of the budget before you count governance and other costs. The grants handed out only amount to 18% of Concern's budget (all in my post and the link in that post).

I can tell you one thing for certain, the amount of money handed out by DSP is certainly more than 18% of its budget so I think I have made a case based on probabilities that it is unlikely Concern is as efficient as DSP.

Over to someone who wants to produce evidence to the contrary.

sarumite

Godge wrote: »

I then went to verify the 0.5% figure and found that it was a pile of rubbish, see my earlier post, the support costs are €8m alone which is 5% of the budget before you count governance and other costs. The grants handed out only amount to 18% of Concern's budget (all in my post and the link in that post).

I can tell you one thing for certain, the amount of money handed out by DSP is certainly more than 18% of its budget so I think I have made a case based on probabilities that it is unlikely Concern is as efficient as DSP.

Over to someone who wants to produce evidence to the contrary.

A few points.Grants handed out was closer to 20-21%, the 160m figure was for 2011, 2012 figure was 143m (see appendix 1)

If you look at appendix 1 it gives a breakdown of its expenditure by country. According to the source you provided, and I quote,

"Total cost of charitable activities 135,717m"

out of a total income of 143m. obviously included in charitable activities is IT costs etc, as well as education and advocacy or as you somewhat disingenuously put it as "publicity and lobbying". however you haven't provided evidence to suggest that concerns only role as a charity is to provides financial grants to other charities.

So yeah, back to you to show how much of the 135m they spend on charitable activities involves things such as IT etc, or at the very least what is their administration costs for grants they provide.

on edit: Personally I think that since concern and DoSP have very different modes of operations, trying to do a comparison is a little moot. Concern deal with fewer people however within many countries internationally whereas DoSP deal with a lot of people in a single country so their respective adminstration and other needs will be very different.

Godge

sarumite wrote: »

A few points.Grants handed out was closer to 20-21%, the 160m figure was for 2011, 2012 figure was 143m (see appendix 1)

If you look at appendix 1 it gives a breakdown of its expenditure by country. According to the source you provided, and I quote,

"Total cost of charitable activities 135,717m"

out of a total income of 143m. obviously included in charitable activities is IT costs etc, as well as education and advocacy or as you somewhat disingenuously put it as "publicity and lobbying". however you haven't provided evidence to suggest that concerns only role as a charity is to provides financial grants to other charities.

So yeah, back to you to show how much of the 135m they spend on charitable activities involves things such as IT etc, or at the very least what is their administration costs for grants they provide.

on edit: Personally I think that since concern and DoSP have very different modes of operations, trying to do a comparison is a little moot. Concern deal with fewer people however within many countries internationally whereas DoSP deal with a lot of people in a single country so their respective adminstration and other needs will be very different.

Sorry, some mixing up of 2011 and 2012.

There are €6.7m of support costs allocated to charitable activities (see note 6).

Note 3 gives further detail on the charitable expenditure activity.
Note 9 gives detail on salary costs.

The main point I make is that whether you take your 135m minus the 7m support costs giving 128 out of 143 giving (89% only spent on development activity) or whether you delve more deeply into information that is not readilyavailable on how their own activity is spent or what is meant by expenditure on advocacy, there is at least 11% of expenditure not spent on their core activity which is a long way from the 0.5% mentioned by the first comment (a factor of 22).

The first post to which I am responding implicitly suggested that 0.5% was the only cost other than charitable activity and that this was favourable compared to the DSP. I have shown that this is far from the case and that that poster is out by a factor of at least 22 and that the costs of running Concern are at least 11% of revenue.

I only set out to disprove the 0.5% which I have done.

sarumite

Godge wrote: »

I only set out to disprove the 0.5% which I have done.

And then you said this, which is what I responded to.

Godge wrote: »

I don't have the figures for admin in the Department of Social Protection but if I did I would bet that as a % of activity they are far far lower than Concern's.

and followed with this

Godge wrote: »

I can tell you one thing for certain, the amount of money handed out by DSP is certainly more than 18% of its budget so I think I have made a case based on probabilities that it is unlikely Concern is as efficient as DSP.

While I haven't done any mathematical analysis, however in terms of probabilities I would guess you have a p-value approaching 0.5 based on the amount of data you have supplied.

creedp

sarumite wrote: »

While I haven't done any mathematical analysis, however in terms of probabilities I would guess you have a p-value approaching 0.5 based on the amount of data you have supplied.

Golly I'll have to unearth the old statistics book to understand whether there is a likelihood that charities, given their small scale and relatively high paid management strutcure, have expensive operating costs. When times are tough, rationalisation is essential for efficiencies - maybe this should also apply to charities.

Of course if people just want to continually attack the public sector then it makes perfect sense to drag the discussion - it is indisputable that all charities are more efficient than the public sector - out to the nth degree. Carry on with the statistics lesson - there is nothing as satisfying as a statistical discussion of a Friday lunchtime.

Godge

sarumite wrote: »

And then you said this, which is what I responded to.



and followed with this



While I haven't done any mathematical analysis, however in terms of probabilities I would guess you have a p-value approaching 0.5 based on the amount of data you have supplied.

Look I am fed up with producing link after link and statistic after statistic and people coming along and saying you haven't proved this and you haven't proved that and contributing nothing of substance to the debate. When I show that support costs in Concern are 11%, I believe that information stands on its own as it is unlikely that DSP is anywhere near as inefficient as that.

Well, seeing as you don't believe me and can't be bother to disprove me (probably because you know I am right), here is your answer.


http://per.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/REVISED-ESTIMATES-VOLUME-2013-final.pdf


2013 estimates, see page 167.

Total expenditure by the Department of Social Protection: €14.122 bn
Administration costs: €417m

That is in or around 3%. Show me the charity that is as efficient as that.

sarumite

Godge wrote: »

Look I am fed up with producing link after link and statistic after statistic and people coming along and saying you haven't proved this and you haven't proved that and contributing nothing of substance to the debate.

So now I can't even question your methodology?

That is in or around 3%. Show me the charity that is as efficient as that.

Does that 11% include the 7% of their budget they spend on fund raising? have you accounted for the fact that they operate in a lot more countries etc? What is included in the 11%? Is their 11% paying for the exact same as the DSP.....office space, necessary IT infrastructure etc? I think I may have mentioned before that a single statistic isn't enough to draw a conclusion. Any good scientist will tell you that data itself is not information.

Anyway I am fed up with these useless comparisons which are pretty meaningless considering how different both organisation are, so you can rant on as I think its time I left this thread.

Godge

sarumite wrote: »

So now I can't even question your methodology?



Does that 11% include the 7% of their budget they spend on fund raising? have you accounted for the fact that they operate in a lot more countries etc? What is included in the 11%? Is their 11% paying for the exact same as the DSP.....office space, necessary IT infrastructure etc? I think I may have mentioned before that a single statistic isn't enough to draw a conclusion. Any good scientist will tell you that data itself is not information.

Anyway I am fed up with these useless comparisons which are pretty meaningless considering how different both organisation are, so you can rant on as I think its time I left this thread.

That is where common sense comes in. The difference between 3% and 11% is of such a significant nature that your other points are meaningless. It could equally be argued that DSP has to have an office in every parish in the country but Concern doesn't, that Concern has unpaid volunteers to do some of the heavy lifting etc. So swings and roundabouts won't get rid of the 8% gap.

The probability that I am correct in saying that DSP is more efficient than Concern is probably now above 0.8 if you did your mathematical analysis.